ResumeGrabber
Data
Entry Tool for Contact Managers
Once
again I am happy to write about a product by the eGrabber Company, ResumeGrabber,
whose products we have written about numerous times in this column. Many of you
have sophisticated applicant-tracking systems designed specifically for our
industry; however, legions are still using Outlook, ACT!, or Goldmine for their
day-to-day recruiting and contact management. For those users, or anyone that
needs to be able to quickly and accurately import text or web data into a usable
format for later use should think about taking a look at this review for
ResumeGrabber Standard, version 3.1...just released. Simply put...ResumeGrabber
extracts and captures information from a document or web page, then uses that
information to automatically populate a new record in your contact management
software.
You
can tell there have been major improvements to the parsing engine in this new
release. The new engine is excellent...out of the 30 or so resumes I grabbed in
the course of this review I can report virtually 100% accuracy in the captured
results...very impressive. I noticed the parsing engines picks up more
information. You now have support for multiple phone numbers, websites in
addition to the standard information including the phone numbers, email
addresses, resume text, the resume itself, and other details you specify. This
version certainly retains the ease of use of the previous ResumeGrabber
interfaces, while giving you a more complete resume sourcing control solution.
There
is some setup involved but it all goes towards customizing this solution to
obtain the maximum efficiency for your particular needs. The Options menu is
where all this happens. You set up the capture in either word (rtf) or html
formats but better yet...you can choose how to name the file and also choose a
directory for the saved resumes. I was able to create a new directory on my hard
drive for my grabbed resumes and will be able to search those resumes in the
future. You can also save to a networked drive if you share your information
with other recruiters.
The
Destination Tab is critical for the power users. Not only is this where you
select your contact manager software but you can also specify routine
information you want added into any user-defined fields. Let's say in Outlook
you created new user-defined fields where you wanted to put the contacts skills
and / or resume source for each contact. If these values are going to be common
from one assignment to another, you are able to type in the default values to
enter into these fields for each new record. This not only saves data entry
time, but will also enable you to later search on that field.
The
Search Setup is a must do (another new feature). This is where you would enter
keywords you are going to be searching for. You might add twenty or thirty of
the most common keywords you typically find in your job orders. Candidates
grabbed will have these keywords flagged in the color of your choice on capture.
Again,
as in previous versions, ResumeGrabber resides on your computer screen as a
simple, floating, "always on top" toolbar, however, better than before
is to be able to highlight (not open) a document, click the Go button on the
ResumeGrabber toolbar and capture all the available information without even
opening the document. For an open document or web page you simply swipe the
name, address, telephone and email (and any other contact information available)
to highlight, and then click the Go button on the toolbar. In both cases you age
offered a modifiable preview of the record that will be created.
One
more new and welcomed addition to this release is a scheduling feature that,
again, works with your contact manager. In the contact record preview mentioned
in the previous paragraph there is a Set Activity button which, when clicked,
lets you schedule a call or make an appoint with the individual just grabbed.
The call or appointment will show up in your scheduling software at the
requested time.
Clicking
on the Transfer button creates the new record in your contact manager with the
resume text pasted into the new record and the resume plainly attached. This
candidate is now in my Outlook / Contacts folder. Note that ResumeGrabber can be
used to import resumes from your email, word documents or any third party job
sites including DICE, Headhunter, and Monster.
If
you want to add a personal contact or sales/marketing contact you can elect to
transfer the contact information without attaching a resume. Duplication of
records in your contact manager is eliminated as it checks while transferring
based on combinations of name, company, email address, and zip. You can add
links and notes (like job orders, reference letters) as attachments to any
record.
I
also wanted to mention that they have an excellent tutorial, which I referred to
several times. Simple and easy to use, it walks you step by step through any
task and is installed with the application.
Whew!!
I was beginning to get worried. Here I co-author a column on recruiting
technology and technology really seemed to have bogged down. Nothing really new
on the recruiting side. Some super passive candidate recruiting interfaces
available but all are utilizing the same engines and strings. Some great ATS’s
out there but not a lot more new they can put on the table. Was my job as
columnist for The Fordyce Letter in jeopardy??? Not yet…thanks to the
BroadLook System, a business research tool in a class by itself.
Not
too long ago researching a company on the internet meant taking a look at the
website, checking FlipDog for present and past job ads, maybe even visiting
Hoovers, the venerable business information website. This product takes
researching an industry / company to a new level. One thing that strikes me as I
use the software is that it assists you in following a structured methodology to
obtain the desired results, much like following a passive candidate search
methodology.
The BroadLook
System starts with the Prospect Search, which pops up in it’s own window.
Prospect Search searches for all the company websites that are related in some
way to the industry/keywords you select. Let’s say you had a job order for an
engineer, accountant or other professional requiring very specific industry
related experience. You might review your clients website and pick up a few
keywords here and from your order and use these keywords for the Prospect
Search. Your first search can be fairly broad, using just a keyword or two,
maybe a phrase…then, as in the previously mentioned recruiting methodologies,
you use the results of the first pass to refine your search further. You might
end up with 150 websites on your first pass but would want to get that down to a
dozen or so before you analyzed the sites using the BroadLook engine.
I
chose an industry, DVD copying, as I had some familiarity there and knew the
niche marketplace. In my test case, I used a simple phrase as my search term and
ended up with 55 sites in the queue. If I had wanted to increase the number of
hits I could go back and edit the search plan, add additional criteria items,
and re-run the search to increase the number of websites returned. 55, though,
was plenty. Too many. So I spent a few minutes perusing the websites in
BroadLooks own built in web browser and selecting criteria from websites I had
no interest in…then “excluding” them from the search results. Ending up
with 15, I examined these once more and specifically excluded 5 more sites to
end up with 10 rock-solid competitors to my clients main line of business.
Once
your Prospect Search is complete, you export those results to the main BroadLook
engine. This search engine scans not only the home page but also the job/careers
page if available, the WHOIS Internet database, performs a domain search,
affiliation searches, searches print news, searches Internet newsgroups and
provides results from Internet-based phone number lookups. Then, provides this
information to you for each company in an easy-to-use, tabbed format.
In
my case, I ran my DVD copying plan in the BroadLook engine and one by one it
searched these companies websites for information I could use. On completion of
the project I investigated the results of my target companies and found I had
the names of several, sometimes numerous, company employees and their contact
information, and in many cases, the company name and full address. Some results
were more informative than others but I now have contact information from
companies I had never even heard of before to start calling or emailing.
When
you want some quick information on a specific company…use the Quick Search
feature. Type in the company name and website address and get back a list of
names, phone numbers and email addresses for many of the company employees.
The
last part of the BroadLook System is the Trigger Events manager.
Lets put it this way…What if you could put every company you ever
placed with into BroadLook? Then, either weekly, bi-weekly or any time frame,
you could track “Trigger Events” that happen within your client.
Examples of trigger events: Expansion and Relocation, Financial changes,
Strategic Relationships, Staffing Changes/Layoffs, New Product or Service and
Press Releases. Instead of
the monthly obligatory call to clients, checking on the status of hiring, you
could contact your client when one of your Trigger events that signify a buying
sign. This allows you to become
more a consultant to your clients and less of a transactional supplier of
services. When you call...you
don’t have to ask “what is new?”, you already are aware, you are
in-the-know. This is strategic prospecting.
No one is more likely to write you a check then someone in your existing
client base.
BroadLook
exports to over 50 ATS (applicant tracking systems) and CRM's including PC
Recruiter, RESUMATE, BullHorn, Goldmine, ACT!, cBizOne, Gopher, COATS and many
others as well as exporting to EXCEL or comma delimited files.
Anyone
with a need to perform this type of research and analysis for their industry
specialty or client or client competitors should take one of their demos. They
provided an excellent training session prior to using the product, which was a
group, Internet-based meeting. Although the product searches the Internet it is
installed locally.
Pricing
is $1,145 per user, which is a purchase, not an annual fee. This price also
entitles the user to one year of free upgrades.
My
contact for this article, Donato Diorio, is President & CEO of BroadLook and
can be reached via voice at 262-691-3900 x211 or via email at ddiorio@broadlook.com.
You can also visit the BroadLook website at www.BroadLook.com.
Anyone interested can also hear an interview with Donato on Bill Vick’s
www.xtremerecruiting.org website.
Review
- 7 Days to Recruiter Profits
By
Barbara Ling
With
a title like that…how can you resist? This new ebook from Barbara is a bit
different than the products I review from her, which are typically teaching the
recruiting community to effectively recruit candidates from the Internet, and
then, generate fees from our clients from placing those individuals. This book,
in a very easy to read and understandable format, teaches the recruiting
community how to utilize and profit by what are normally wasted
resources…unplaced candidates. How to generate fees/revenue from our candidate
stream, a source you may not have considered in the past.
Up
front, I’ll say this method is not going to be useful unless you have a fairly
high candidate flow, as I do. Because I have been recruiting in my geographic
area for so long and have also signed up for numerous resume submission
services, I can get up to a hundred resumes a week sometimes, especially in this
economy. Obviously, under the best of circumstances, I would only place a tiny
fraction of those individuals. Those I am unable to place are relegated to my
database or resume directory for another day that usually never comes. These
people that send in these resumes are obviously looking for another job and many
are unemployed. What if you had a resource to offer these candidates…one that
would help them out but allow you to profit a bit at the same time. That, along
with how to roll your own
career-resource product for additional income, is the gist of this 54-page (pdf) book.
Barbara
walks you through this process…step-by-step…enabling you to actually create
a page on your website that you might call “Candidate Resources” or
something similar. This page will contain a list of products and services you
offer that cater to the candidate/job seeker type of contact. Barbara’s own
book, Make them Beg to Hire You, would be the type of resource a job
seeker might purchase. Another might be 57 Great Cover Letter and Resume
Tune-Up Checks. Your product line is in no way limited to Barbara’s
offerings. Through affiliates, you are able to customize your product line by
selecting other resources on job searching, networking, resume writing and many
other career resources by numerous authors. Also, you are given a primer and
instructions on how to actually author you own book, including a simple format,
that you can also market on you website.
Although
this does take some setup time, once the signup process is complete, the product
line is selected and the web page is up, running and working (she walks you
through every bit of this) there is virtually no further time you would need to
spend on this part of the project. From then on, each time a resume comes into
you inbox (one you cannot use), you simply send this person a simple email
thanking them for sending in the resume, stating that you will keep their resume
on file until an appropriate position arises, then pointing them to your job
seeker oriented web page as a service to that candidate. Simple as that. Some
will visit and buy…most won’t but all the purchasing, payments, shipping are
handled by a third party and all you will ever need to do is deposit a
commission check whenever sales are made. The commissions vary by product but
can be up to 50% of the sale price.
I
admit I had never thought much about profiting in any way from my candidate pool
but have always been frustrated by this often-wasted resource. Since my
candidate flow warrants it I will go ahead and give this project a try. If I
have any luck I will write about my findings in a future column.
Anyone
interested in finding out more about this ebook can visit the website, www.recruitermarketing.com.
This basic version of this product
currently runs $47.00 and the deluxe is $77.00 (Barbara includes an editable copy of her job seeking resource book that you can customize to roll your own).
Either can be ordered
and then immediately downloaded from this website.
I
recently received this offer for Fordyce subscribers in the email. For your
information:
"www.bestheadhunters.com is
a new website that is offering the readers of The Fordyce Letter a chance to post
their difficult to fill positions for 30 days for free. They will
forward all qualified candidates that they receive on each posting to the
stated contact information.
All
our readers have to do is go on the Best Headhunters website
and register as an employer at http://www.bestheadhunters.com/index.php?page=emp_registration (You
may post multiple job positions). They will verify your
registration, then you will be able to post unlimited positions in all
industries for free.
This
is an opportunity for our readers to take advantage of free job postings on
a growing job board. The process is very easy and no html is required."
Anyone
with any questions or comments can reach Richard Russell, Marketing
Director, via voice at 954-382-2962
or via email at richard@bestheadhunters.com.
A
good tip for this month is the use of Internet communities as a passive
candidate-recruiting source. Any recruiter that has ever done any recruiting of
this type is undoubted familiar with Alta-Vista, Google and many other
well-known and productive Internet search engines. We have all used these
engines to scour the Internet for resumes. Recruiting from the communities is
another way to locate the resumes of passive candidates on the Internet. These
communities are virtual places where everyday people gather to share
information, make friends, kill time or whatever but many of these same people
are professionals that use their custom space provided to them (usually for
free) to post their resumes on the Internet, even if they are not looking for a
job.
I
picked one to test, Angelfire (www.angelfire.com).
The good thing about communities is that they all have their own internal search
engine. I put in the keyword “resume” and got over 63,000 results, although
I did notice many were not resumes. I added the keyword “cobol” and reduced
my results to 943. Still way too many to review. I added my home state of
Missouri to the string and ended up with 22 hits…all resumes…all in my area.
Besides Angelfire, there are several other communities to search, including but
not limited to: